“I told myself that if I didn't care, this wouldn't have hurt so much - surely that proved I was alive and human and all those touchy-feely things, for once and for all. But that wasn't a relief, not when I felt like a skyscraper with dynamite on every floor.”

“I got myself into a tangle. I tied myself in knots. I built and I built–heaven knows I have done that well. Those skyscrapers, full of tenants, floor after floor, and not a single room containing you.”

“Reagan was read portions of his own diary, and he said something I'll never forget: "It's like I wasn't president at all". Very sad. As I reflected about this i was sure that I didn't want to badger Mark Felt in the same manner. i didn't want Felt to have to say, in effect, "It's like i wasn't Deep Throat at all".”

“I know you white girls are all touchy feely, but, could you not? I feel like I’m a felon on death row every time you touch me. It’s like, damn, can I get a last meal at least before getting hooked up to the electric machine?”

“So he didn't have to prove how he felt about me. Like so much else, I should just know.”

“I started to get up, but that hand tightened on my foot. I wanted to pace, needed to let off some of the nervous energy that kept me from eating half the time, kept me from sleeping. And just when I told myself I was being paranoid and everything would be fine, something tried to drown me in the goddamned bathtub.But I didn't get up. Because then I'd lose that bried, human connection. A connection that shouldn;t have been there, because Priktin wasn't the touchy-feely type. He touched me in training, when he had to, and grabbed me in the middle of crises. But I actually couldn't recall him ever touching me just ... because.”